New Mars Discovery: NASA Witnesses Stunning Auroras For The First Time

While Jupiter's Aurora is the brightest in our solar system due to its size and gas-rich atmosphere, our neighboring red planet also exhibits breathtaking, visible-light auroras. While on its mission to discover signs of microbial life on Mars, the Perseverance rover has also discovered a visible-light aurora phenomenon in the Martian atmosphere.

The birth of this aurora originated from 141.6 million miles away in the Sun's active regions. A sudden ejection of energy from the Sun created a solar flare which is usually common at the peak of solar cycles. This resulted in a colossal amount of solar particles being propelled at Mars, which is a perfect recipe for the formation of auroras. A collision between the particles and atmospheric gases create auroras.

What is so spectacular about this Martian aurora discovery, considering that scientists have captured and reported several Martian auroras in the past? It is intriguing because previous Martian auroras were triggered by orbiting spacecraft. The recent one was captured from the surface of Mars from within the Jezero Crater.


Additionally, this marks the first time an aurora has been captured from the surface of a planet other than the Earth. That said, the aurora in the Martian atmosphere is quite different from those observed in Earth's and Jupiter's atmospheres. This is simply because Mars lacks a large magnetosphere, which is often associated with a strong magnetic field.

Elise Knutsen from the University of Oslo in Norway, a lead scientist behind this discovery, explained that "this exciting discovery opens up new possibilities for auroral research and confirms that auroras could be visible to future astronauts on Mars’ surface."